Immortal Reign by Morgan Rhodes | Spoiler Review

As two lethal elemental gods set out to destroy Mytica, sworn enemies must become allies in the final fight to save the kingdoms.

Jonas continues to willfully defy his destiny, but the consequences of plotting his own course are drastic. As the fight for Mytica rages on, he must decide just how much more he’s willing to sacrifice.

Lucia knows there’s something special about her daughter and she’ll do anything to protect her, even if that means facing Kyan alone.

Amara is called back home to Kraeshia. Grandma Cortas has her own plans for Mytica’s future. She promises Amara power, revenge, and dominance if she agrees to be part of her scheme.

Magnus and Cleo‘s love will be put to the ultimate test. Dark magic is causing widespread destruction throughout the kingdom. Enemies across the sea are advancing. And unrest is stirring throughout the land. Is their love strong enough to withstand the outside forces tearing them apart?

R E V I E W

SPOILERS FOR ALL BOOKS IN THE SERIES, INCLUDING IMMORTAL REIGN

Immortal Reign was one of my most anticipated releases of 2017. Then it got pushed back to 2018 and I remained excited. I was sitting on the edge of my seat after the short events of Crystal Storm. The ending especially had me curious about the fate of Magnus Damora in this book. How would my beautiful villain turned softie fair out? I wasn’t going to write a review but I just have so many thoughts, none good.

I typically love conclusions when they’re fleshed out. However, in Immortal Reign a lot happens while simultaneously the characters never move from their original positions. Amara is suddenly not the enemy, King Gaius dies, and the elemental crystals are the only thing that matters. That is really the entire concept of this book. There’s a lot of murder, Lucia is meant to be some sort of demon to the people, and no one seems to really care about the poor people who the elementals have taken over. There is a slight care from Cleo, but really, grief is not something that Morgan Rhodes has a talent for writing.

There were just so many problems with Immortal Reign. It’s not as if I hadn’t known there were problems in the previous books, I had simply ignored them because I didn’t want it to take away from how exciting the content was. Immortal Reign by Morgan Rhodes has not a single scrap of that excitement from the previous books – which, I’ve rated all five stars. It is weak. The main focus of this book is to give redemption arcs to the antagonists who have been terrible people. Not only that but there is some crazy queer baiting for a f/f couple. I don’t understand why the m/m couple was stated in the text but the f/f couple obviously gets pushed aside. To have a few more short points before I get into the big stuff; Lucia was a terrible mother, Jonas lost his spark, and I have no idea what Magnus and Cleo did apart from having sex together on a beach.

L I K E S

✗ MAGNEO HAPPY ENDING

This is really the only thing I did enjoy. My one ship of this series made it to the end and got a happy ending. I shouldn’t have been shocked considering they’re on the cover. That’s really all I can say. I love the paths they’re character took throughout the series and they didn’t really do much this story, so, they got their happy ending and that is all that really matters to me about the entire book.

D I S L I K E S

✗ APOLOGY ARCS – KILL ME?

The biggest problem of the whole book. I mentioned this earlier in my review, but the apology and redemption arcs of two of the biggest antagonists is a problem. Also the fact that one of the antagonists, Amara, was spontaneously queer baited – I shouldn’t be shocked after what happened with Nic. It just all came across as weak, honestly. You can kill of characters even if they haven’t been redeemed in the book. They’re villains for a reason, you don’t need your character to mourn for their abusive father who was a dictator ruler. You also don’t need to redeem a character that murdered her whole family and blame her grandmother. It all just came across as wasted page time, honestly. This book could have been shorter without all the unnecessary pages that had King Gaius and Amara become ‘good’ people. There was just such a lack of need for it. Also, considering this series is compared to Game of Thrones you would really think Rhodes would be willing to kill them off with no regret.

✗ FORCED RELATIONSHIPS

Jonas and Lucia made me so uncomfortable. Honestly. The whole relationship was just weird. There was also no explanation for either of them in the end, which had me rolling my eyes. The relationship came out of nowhere and looking back, I find it weird that Lucia named her baby after a girl she had gotten murdered and Jonas loved. It’s just so weird. Neither of them shared two brain cells between them as well. They just ran into situations without an ounce of thinking, not caring who got hurt in the process.

✗ WHERE IS THE ORIGINALITY?

It’s not only the fact I didn’t enjoy Immortal Reign, but it lacked originality. It seemed like the story went around in circles, we faced problems we already had and the characters seemed to have lost a lot of the development they had fought for in previous books. It was incredibly disappointing to read and wonder what had happened between the last book and this one, despite the fact the story picks up right where it left off.

✗ POINTLESS SCENES

I think pointless scenes added the most to the circle feeling of this book. It felt every time we were taking one step forward we would take two steps backwards. It was redundant and so frustrating to read. I just wanted these characters to do something useful to the plot instead of screaming and fighting over useless stuff. A few of the POV’s could have been cut – cough, Amara, cough, Nic, cough – and it would have really not impacted the book at all. It was just so much wasted page time, especially with Amara’s section being filled with endless queerbaiting.

✗ EVERYONE GETS A GOLD STAR

Everyone gets a happy ending; no one is at risk for more than a chapter, no one has to face any great issues. It was boring. Every POV from Jonas, Magnus, Nic, Amara, Cleo and Lucia were all boring. Why? Because not a single trouble happened. However, they were all rewarded despite the fact they literally did nothing that just feels pointless. The biggest problem ever, as well, had the easiest conclusion and Lucia was acting like a fucking moron over her child but couldn’t think to ask a simple question of ‘where is my baby?’ – reasons why children shouldn’t have children. It would have been great for there to actually be some danger so that the characters deserved the endless gold stars they received, but nope.

Overall, I’m disappointed. If you were looking for a concise conclusion that’ll make you happy, I’d probably skip Falling Kingdoms altogether. I realise looking at it now that the series really fell apart around Frozen Tides and wasn’t able to pick it’s self up in this final book. It’s disappointing and frustrating just how juvenile this book was at stages. I just wish Morgan Rhodes would have taken a different path because Immortal Reign reads as if it was rushed and just a clump of ideas pulled from the trash.